Donald Kirk
, ContributorI cover business and economy in South and North Korea.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Let it not be said that Japan and Korea can never reach agreement on highly sensitive, seemingly insoluble issues.

That's just happened with the two coming to terms on what had threatened to be yet another bitter disagreement on top of all the other problems they've had in recent years.

The deal revolves around Japan's campaign for UNESCO to declare 23 historic settings for industry and mining in Japan as "world heritage sites" -- acknowledgement of their role in the industrial revolution that propelled Japan to world class as an economic powerhouse.

The problem, as Koreans protested, was that tens of thousands served as "slave labor" on at least seven of the sites in the era in which Japan ruled Korea as a colony from 1910. Korean were forced to work on the sites under increasingly terrible conditions until Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945 -- a date that will be remembered in a round of speech-making, apologizing and recriminations on the 70th anniversary next month.

Hashima coal mine, known as 'Battleship Island' in Nagasaki prefecture, Japan, where Koreans served as "forced labor." It's one of 23 Japanese industrial and mining sites conferred World Heritage status byUNESCO. (JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images)

Japan has always denied that the Koreans were "slaves," but in a deep bow to Korean pressure Japan's ambassador to UNESCO, Kuni Sato, acknowledged that "a large number of Koreans and others" were "forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites."

Yes, at the meeting of a UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Bonn at which all 21 committee members, including Japan and Korea, had to vote unanimously to approve selections, she carefully avoided the word "slave" to describe the Korean workers. She did promise, however, that Japan would set up an "information center" explaining the circumstances under which Koreans labored at the sites.

The deal came with a quid pro quo that Koreans found alluring -- Japan agreed certainly it would support Korea's bid for "world heritage" recognition for eight ancient sites in the heart of the old Baekje kingdom of southwestern Korea.

Koreans can now be proud -- and relieved -- that assorted fortresses, temples, tombs and palaces from the era in which the Baekje kingdom ruled over the region for six centuries until about 700 A.D. merit the accolade. UNESCO in a statement observed that the Baekje sites in ancient times "were at the crossroads of considerable technological, religious (Buddhism), cultural and artistic exchanges between the ancient East Asian kingdoms in Korea, China and Japan."

The issue was particularly sensitive for reasons that have nothing to do with Japan -- such recognition helps to balance the score with other Korean World Heritage sites, including the Changdeokgung Palace complex in central Seoul and the temples and palaces of Gyeongju, center of the
Silla kingdom of southeastern Korea that conquered Baekje -- a triumph that lives on today in often bitter differences between the two regions. Koreans from the southwestern Cholla provinces and the city of Gwangju complained that their own region was ignored in the quest for UNESCO recognition just as they charge the government has often done politically and economically.

In fact, the UNESCO committee voted to approve the Baekje sites one day before the Japanese sites. The reason for that delay is believed to have been that the Koreans wanted to make sure the Japanese included the proper words of repentance for their misdeeds -- including the deaths of at least 90 of the 57,000 Korean workers at the seven sites. The Koreans insisted they needed advance assurances the sacrifice of the Korean laborers would be remembered in material disseminated to visitors.

The deal on UNESCO recognition offers hope that perhaps Korean and Japanese scholars and bureaucrats can come to terms on textbook histories that Koreans and Chinese say gloss over the Japanese imperial era of cruel conquest of much of Asia before 1945.

If the Japanese can agree to admit having behaved so badly to Korean workers, can they also confess to having slaughtered millions in the Chinese city of Nanking and elsewhere? And can they finally agree on some form of compensation -- beyond what the Japanese gave when Japan and Korea formed diplomatic relations in 1965 -- for the exploitation of "comfort women" forced to serve Japanese soldiers during the war in the Pacific?

In the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, these are questions that are often asked. If Japan and Korea could come to terms on World Heritage sites, are there not ways to compromise on other contentious issues too? Japan's
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may hint at the answers in a speech on the anniversary that's sure to be parsed and analyzed phrase by phrase.

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